The Eighth Level
by Scarabbug
Summary: He never actually told her the truth. Who she is, where she came from… she doesn’t know the facts. She’s ready to fight, like always, but he’s not. He’s never been good at that stuff… An ad lib fanfiction.
1. Chapter 1

This odd experience began life as a short Sparx and Chuck convo, but somehow or other it's formed itself into a potential multi-parter. I don't usually post fiction as I write it, so I can't guarantee the speed of this one's updating. It's just that in this case, I felt like making an exception. I hope it's okay, as I don't have much of an idea where it's going. The quote itself, may be removed, and the title is also subject to change, dependant on how well it works itself in with the final plot. Suggestions, anyone?

**Disclaimer**: Do these words sound like they belong to a famous and entertaining television show producer who knows about computer graphics to you? No, so I don't own these guys.

* * *

_"**Technology is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other."**_  
- Carrie P. Snow 

Decisions of the Eighth Level. 

Scarab Dynasty.

One.

'_You sure you didn't just… fall asleep at the computer again, Chuck?'_

That's what Mark said, but Chuck was pretty damn sure it hadn't happened like that. No. Couldn't have done.

She's a few feet in front of him. She's got her sword out and that music on that she actually kinda hates. He thinks it's that Tai Chi stuff that Ace used to get her doing. Only she's not being steady and gentle like you're supposed to be so much as she is sharp and… and spunky.

Yeah. That's a pretty good word for her. Spunky. The music doesn't fit her at all.

'You… you're leaving now, right, Sparx?'

She turns around, sweeping her sword back into… well, wherever it goes when she makes it vanish like that. It's some weird programming thing that he's never been able to figure out. Not that he's tried. He always just thought the whole fact of them being here was kinda sorta cool enough. He didn't have to read into it.

'Yup, sure am.' Sparx's reply snaps him out of his thoughts. 'Soon anyways. Gotta get going, right? Places to go, people to save…'

He stabs at the keypad, feeling uneasy. He hasn't told her yet.

'I guess…. Um. Go where?'

'You think I know?' Sparx shrugs like it doesn't really matter _where_ she's going or where she'll end up. 'You never do until you get there... Don't look like that, Chuck, it's not so bad. It's a buzz, I guess. You know, never knowing which butt you're gonna be whupping next. I mean Zombie, Yokel, Buzzbeast, Harpix… hey, take your pick.'

Zombie, Harpix, Buzzbeast… He's met the owners of those names in the videogame and they always make him feel queasy. Buzzbeasts –they're those nasty critters you run into in the Silicon Mines with the… the saws on their tails and the energy blasters and all those nasty… teeth. The Harpix –they've got those ugly dudes guarding the gate into Magery City, and he's _never_ been able to bust through them. And as for the Zombies? Don't even go there, dudes. Run-in's with those guys are always a bad experience. How can she sound so damn… excited about it?

'I see…' he tries to sound like himself.

'Hey,' she sounds a little quieter, but he figures she isn't the kind of person to notice when someone else is bummed. 'There's butt to kick in the next dimension, kid. Evil to destroy, Amulet pieces to find… again, yadda, yadda. You get the idea.'

_Next dimension? Does that even _exist_, dude? Do you have any idea what really comes next? _

_What if you go… and there's nowhere TO go?_

'So what's up, Chuckdude?' she turns off the stereo by wrenching the plug out of the wall. He's given up showing her where the "off" switch is. She doesn't really care. 'You look like you lost your lunchbox or something.'

Chuck feels his stomach turning again. '_Nope…_ _Worse than that, dude, way, way worse…'_ Ace never actually told her the truth, did he? Chuck wishes that he had. Who she is, where she came from… she doesn't know any of the facts. In truth, he doesn't want her to know. None of them do.

_I don't want you to vanish… Maybe Mark didn't mean it to happen like this. I mean, when he said he wanted them not to worry anymore, surely he didn't mean… _

_Damn you, Mark. Damn. Why'd you have to leave me to sort all this? This is SO not easy!_

'Nothing, it's just… I mean, does this happen _every_ time?' he stares at her frowning. 'I mean the… the _leaving_? The moving from one level to another, the amulet pieces getting scattered?'

He doesn't know why he's asking. He already knows the answer. Heck, he's chmug3. The president. Numero Uno… well, duo. Nobody knows more about the game than he does. He gets the game plan by now.

_And that's what this is, right? A game? Just another level? There's gotta be an ending to it… _

'Sure it does,' Sparx says. 'Why? Should it be any different?'

He hesitates. 'Well… wasn't it different _this_ time?'

When he says that she gets this… look on her face. The kind she really doesn't get a lot. The kind which means she's actually thinking. 'Yeah, I guess it was, kinda. I mean, no two places are the same. There was this one time in the Magery City where…' she pauses, screwing up her face in thought. Chuck waits for an answer he's not going to get. 'Um… yeah, hang on, it'll come to me.'

'Nah, it's cool dude. You don't have to try and remember.'

_No sense in remembering something that never really happened, right?_

He knows he never really thought enough about this beforehand. That day when Ace said that there were "other dimensions to deal with" and that Lord Fear would be "ready for them when they reached the next level", he never gave it much thought. He hadn't figured that it would eventually come to _this_, and that now, she'd be the only one left. The last one in this dimension. _Last one in the real world… and she doesn't even know it. _

'Yeah, but I want you to know this stuff. You never know, you might end up there too someday. Lightning Knights have to stick together, right?'

Chuck shuffles uneasily. He has no intention whatsoever of _ever_ getting back inside that game. He doesn't know how it happened and he doesn't _want _to know.

'Yeah.'

'Well… you're a Lightning Knight.'

Chuck smiles a little even though he doesn't reallywant to. All of sudden, he's starting to get why Mark never liked being called that.

'Sorta. It's just… weird, dude. You're leaving. And you won't be coming back.' _I'll never see you guys again... _

'No kidding I won't be,' Sparx laughs. He knows what she means. Coming back _here_ would mean getting wiped out in the "next level", or so she believes. 'They'll have to blast me back first and that ain't gonna happen, Chuckdude. Um... no offence. I mean, cool world and everything, but the bad guys suck around here. There's never any _action_.'

Action? He'd never complained about that, not since _they_ got here, anyway. But then, he's had a taste of the game from the inside, so he figures Sparx's idea of "action" is probably way different to his. Their life isn't the same as his. It keeps resetting itself over and over, whenever something bad happens. She'd have to die to get back here once she'd left. And yet a part him wishes that would happen.

'_Would you freak if you knew I thought like that? Sure you would. You'd probably hate me or something…'_

'…But I'll be okay, wherever I am, Chuck.' He looks up at her, surprised at her tone. It's like she really believes what she's saying. She turns and looks at him. 'You'll be okay too, right?'

'Yeah. Sure I will. No sweat.' He's lying.

'You mean it? I mean, you'll have Mark, y'know. You guys can... watch out for each other, can't you?'

'Yeah.'_ I hope... _

'Cool. And I'll have Ace… and Lugnut. Sorta.'

_Random too? How can you _say_ that, Sparx?_

She must have seen the look in his eyes. 'Look, he's whacked, okay but it's not like he's totally bad. It was an accident, Chuck. Besides, he was aiming at Ace.'

She's never looked at him like that before. To be honest, he wonders if it's more the fact that _he_ never looked deep enough.

'He still made... one hell of a mess.' Chuck's voice is almost a whisper when he speaks.

She sighs, goes back to her sword, and doesn't say much else for a while. And he just sits there watching the blue and green numbers on the screen, until something else happens.

It starts with him not being able to read the laptop screen properly. It trembles in the dull light inside the Thunder Tower and he thinks maybe he's just not sleeping and has started seeing things, and then he realises that it's not just the words on the screen that are shaking. It's the computer, and the desk, and the room all around them. Sparx staggers out of a block. She looks up, gritting her teeth in a grin.

'Great! Looks like we've got company, Chuckdude.'

'Oh… yeah… great.' Chuck groans, scrambling for the –Mark's, he reminds himself– wrist cannon on the desk. 'Wonderful, that's all we need. Who…'

He cuts himself off. There's no point in finishing his question because there's only one thing that could make the building shake like that anyway. There's a spasm, sharper than any other, a burst of energy as Sparx powers up her sword. 'This is what we need alright, Chuckdude, a little action around here! Why should Ace get all the fun?'

He barely has time to yell at her that he doesn't exactly call this "fun" before the ground seems to smash open in several places all around him. Something clutches his ankle and drags him off his feet and he hears Sparx yelling as he hits the ground with a thud.

This is the point when he wakes up.

* * *

Crit is appreciated. 


	2. Chapter 2

This is turning out to be quite a weird fic, and not at all my usual style of posting. I 'm quite literally making it up as I go and hoping to all hopes that it's decent enough for public viewing. This second chapter came from a fanfic challenge given to me by (I believe) **Hyperpsychomaniac**, and since the challenge result seemed to say just what I was going for with the story so far, I decided to use it as a chapter rather than writing another, cause I'm lazy like that. ;)

**Disclaimer**: See Chapter One.

* * *

Two.

"_Earthquake? You have got to be kidding me, EARTHQUAKE?"_

"_Yup. Rictor-Scale Five, that's what they're saying." _

x

He hadn't expected this. Not any of it. Never in his worst nightmares had he thought that this kind of thing could have—

Odd then, that the local news broadcasters are passing it off as an earthquake.

Ha.

Yeah, this is an earthquake. The sky is turning violet, power lines are blowing up or shutting down at random and the whole city is crackling with heat and static energy because of an _earthquake_. The locals of Conestoga Hills probably aren't going to buy that one for much longer…

Something round and made of metal flies past him before he has much time to think about that, near taking off his weapon hand. The jolt throws him backwards with a painful sounding "crack". He didn't see it coming. He didn't even feel it until it had already gone past and he was on his back in the dirt.

'Ah!' he pulls back, swearing. "Ow" would be an understatement. The metal was sharp and sliced through muscle, striking the bone underneath. He felt the skin tearing. A few seconds later it starts to hurt.

'Kid! Mark, are you all… Oh, Zoar.' Ace pauses and stares at Mark's shoulder, for a moment Mark can't make out why, and then he remembers that Ace has probably never seen human blood before.

'It… It's okay, Ace.'

He tries to move. He knows pain, but he's never felt anything like _this_. He remembers cutting his hand on a potato knife once… how old had he been? Seven? Eight? Young enough so that the pain and the sight of the blood had scared him as much as it's freaking Ace out now. As much as it freaked him that time when it was binary code, deep and blue and liquid-like and draining out of Sparx, one painful digit at a time.

'It's _not_ alright, kid, you're hurt…'

'I-it was probably a hubcap or something. Ace, don—'

He cuts off, swallowing in pain; Ace takes a hand away from his shoulder. There's a smear of red on his palm. Ace stares at it for a long moment, like it's some kind of foreign entity.

Sparx has her sword clutched close to her chest, like a shield against anything that might hit her. The air crackles with the sword's energy, bright pink and burning. 'Chuck?' she half yells. 'Chuck, _please_, tell me you made a mistake and this is gonna stop any… second now!'

Chuck's face looks white, reflected in the light from his computer. 'It's a no go. I… I still can't see anything.'

'What?'

'I said it's not there, I can't find it, alright?'

'No, we tracked it down. Th-that Datastream rip… thing or whatever it was! It was here!'

'Well it's not here now! Maybe... maybe there was a mistake in the system.'

Sparx stabs at her surroundings. 'Look around, Chuck, does THIS look like an accident to you?'

'I know what it looks like but… but I'm not reading anything! This _isn't_ the source, it's just a reflection a… a spin off, a secondary growth!' Then he turns around and blinks, and it seems that in all the chaos he actually somehow _missed_ seeing his best friend getting sliced open by flying metal. 'Holy… Mark what the–'

Mark doesn't hear the rest of his question. It hurts so damn much he can't focus on anything. The knife hadn't gone as deep as this, had it? He can't remember. He was just a kid playing around. Just some stupid little…

'Kid?'

Mark jolts. Then realises that's a mistake, because his shoulder feels like its on fire and frozen numb at the same time. Ace has a hand at his back like he's trying to hold him upright; Mark pushes him away and doesn't quite know why.

'Dude, you're a mess!'

'Chuck, will you just find it already?' Mark snaps, signalling back at the laptop.

'I-I'm looking, man, but I can't get a signal.'

Sparx is still using her sword, holding it out lengthways to shield from debris. Blue energy is mingling with pink and reacting, like those chemicals in test tubes they'd been shown once in chemistry class. The blade is cutting into her palm. Mark knows how she feels. His shoulder's pounding. Everything is shaking and trembling, with the metal bones of the junkyard falling apart all around them and blue and silver energy racing over the earth. It feels like somebody's ripping the city apart from the inside out. Mark decides they'd be more likely to get out of here alive if he tries to ignore that.

'O-okay stop, Chuck, not here! We have to get out!'

Ace's face changes from agreement to dismay in less than a second. Mark barely notices it. 'Random…'

He's looking over Mark's shoulder and into the junkyard. It looks as if a storm's been dragged down to earth. Everything's so much more dark and black and cold than before. Or maybe that's just him. Everything's bursting with electricity and he can't tell where the sky ends and the junkyard begins.

Random Virus… the junkyard. Okay, _now_ Mark makes the connection…

Oh, _hell_.

'Too late for that, Ace,' Sparx's voice is oddly quiet as she gazes back into the chaos that used to be a junkyard. Not even a cyborg could get out of that… mess. She sinks back behind the car wreckage they're using as a shield against the elements. A second later she grabs Chuck's shoulder and wrenches him forwards a few feet, just before the blinding blue energy takes over the vehicle they're using as shelter. 'And if we don't fix this whole thing soon we'll be in the same freakin' mess!'

'We could run for it?' Chuck suggests. His voice squeaking in a way that would have been funny if he wasn't so noticeably terrified.

'Run WHERE?' Sparx snaps, she sounds angry at the very thought of it. 'You know anywhere in the city that's NOT doing this?'

'A-actually yeah.' He taps a button on the laptop. Mark doesn't see which one. 'The… the carnival.'

'What?' Everyone yells at him simultaneously. Including Mark.

'Kilobyte,' Sparx spits the name, like it leaves a bad taste in her mouth. '_Oblivion_, we should've known, Ace!'

'Maybe him, maybe not, but whoever caused this, the whole source is _definitely _echoing from the carnival.' Chuck shields his face, metal shards are flying everywhere.

'T-that's what you... said last time,' Mark forces out.

'I know, I know, but you can call me on that later, dude, I'm sure this time! It's not a heavy signal so I didn't pick up on it before, but now it's the only hole in this whole system, it's gotta be the one. We have to get there!' He glances at Mark. 'Um…then again a hospital would probably be a better idea…'

'No. No hospitals,' Mark swallows. '_Not_ with these two.'

'Then you're just going to have to leave us, kid.' Ace points out.

'Dude, you're bleed—'

'I know, just… it'll stop,' he lies. 'Look, this is the only thing keeping you two from being ripped up,' he held up the amulet. 'If we separate—'

'Give one of them the amulet, then!'

'You think we haven't tried?' Sparx reached out and tried to take the amulet from Mark's hand to demonstrate. It didn't work, her hand was pushed back, reflected in a glare of gold light, like a bubble. 'The damn thing is glued to him, it won't let us at it!'

'Oh... crap, now you tell me!'

Sparx opens her mouth to yell a retort, and then she hits the dirt and crumbles on her side before anyone can breathe. There's pink electricity bursting everywhere and the screen of the laptop looks like it's about to explode and Ace is yelling, but Mark can't make out the sound. His hand touches his shoulder and grips the material, soaked and red.

He makes out one word, though. Something someone is yelling over the racket. The air is burning, alight with blue and pink and filled with shadows and a thin stretch of light is ripping through the junkyard, smashing through the wrecked cars and cutting them in half.

_'Random! Random Virus!'_

Random? Random Virus. Mark blinks hard, knowing this would be a really, really bad time to pass out. Why is someone yelling for him?

* * *

**...You know, doing stuff ad lib is kinda fun :). Concrit is appreciated.**


	3. Chapter 3

And once again Sarah continues with her new self imposed challenge – ad lib fanfiction without betaing., though it is being ruthlessly self-checked. (could be a risk, I rather suspect my beta is shifting uneasily in her seat, but I'm sure shell get her own back somehow.)

And just to reassert, yes, I still genuinely have no idea in White Hot Oblivion where this is going. I'm deliberately refraining from thinking of what's coming next while of course I try to keep everything done so far consistent. This makes plotting remarkably difficult. But it's worth a shot at least for the sake of the challenge.

So, I hope you like this, and it makes sense.

**Disclaimer**: "See Chapter One" will not be a constant. It's impossible to miss.

* * *

Three. 

_'Um… Look, I know I'm really not the one to judge how the heroes handle their business, but… what the living heck does he think he's doing?'_

x

There's a mortal saying in this world that you never hear the bullet that kills you. That isn't really true, though. The fact is that the gunfire quite literally sucks the sound out of the air. Also, the explosion that you supposedly never hear when the shot is meant for you, is a combination of chemicals and the sound of the bullet smashing through the sound barrier.

Perhaps the same is true for the resonance of a portal, ripping a hole between two worlds at speeds of ten Kryllian metres per second.

With him smack bang in the middle of it.

Not good…

'_It makes no sense. Why this… why now?'_

He knows better, really. He's fooling himself, pretending he has no idea what's happening when deep down he knows exactly what it is. Eternity told him. Two worlds mixed together and then ripped apart again, literally, at the seams. And all because he changed the rules.

'Because I had to. I had to destroy it. My evil half…'

It's been a long time since he felt this kind of pain. Metal is resilient like that. But now even the metal feels searing-hot. Breaking apart.

The rules of two worlds broken. (One world that isn't even supposed to exist in the first place.) He knows that now, and that's what made him so… angry. That's what finally made him decide to act. To stop questioning. To _do_ something.

He remembers a night six years ago. It was the same, back then. The dark and the pain. Only then it was just him and his thoughts and fears, and now the whole dimension is feeling it.

It can't be allowed. It won't be. They'll be destroyed first. Metal creaks and shatters and the world turns black and violet and trembles.

Was that the only choice?

He was never very good at answering his own questions.

'Random?'

The odds of his friend answering him are slim to none, but Ace has to try, because that's what Ace does. Even when things seem completely, utterly lost and impossible. Fighting is just about the only thing you can do sometimes, whether it's productive or not.

"Do Right and Fear Not."

The alternative is just a little too close to giving up for Ace to even consider it.

'Random! He yells louder, knowing that he might as well be trying to make himself heard in the middle of an Ess Smog Storm. Only this isn't quite as easy on the senses as an Ess Smog Storm. The Ess don't tend to rip at your coding and throw metal debris like this. Not in any noticeable way. (They did mess about with your files enough to put you on a high for days but that isn't exactly the same thing as they also give you the option of walking out again.)

Ace knows there's no way he's getting out if this barrier once he gets into it.

And this really isn't a good time to get distracted. Ace keeps yelling, telling himself that his voice shall reach Random, one way or another.

It doesn't. Of course.

'Zoar damn it, Random, answer me!'

…And Ace doesn't know what in Zoar's name is going on.

Random can't hear him, but Mark, apparently can. Ace feel's a hand grip his arm. Mark's shoulder is soaked a bright red colour and he can't seem to take his hand away from it. Ace is certain now that Knight power loss never actually looked like that.

'Ace, come on, we can't stay here!'

He's not actually wrong there. Behind him, Sparx is ripping Chuck away from the bonnet of the car wreck just before a blur of electricity turns it into a conductor.

'_God, Random, what's going on? What in Oblivion are we supposed to…_

'_I have to stop this…' _

'Sparx!' Sparx looks up, her sword is still stuck in the ground, anchoring her. 'Sparx listen, get out of here and get to the carnival now. Don't wait for me!'

'W…at?'

'I said _don't wait for me_! Leave the junkyard! I need you to get to Kilobyte before he this gets any worse!' Ace tries to draw the Lightning Lance, and then decides against it, because with all the excess energy, it's probably not a good idea for him to go bringing more into the equation.

'Ace, what the…are…saying? I can't hea… up!'

Oh, _great_. Ace.

'_Just forget it. she knows what to do.' _

Ace stands up. He's not quite sure how, given the pressure all around them, but he manages it. He's also not quite sure how he manages to push forwards a couple of steps without being tossed skyward by flying debris, but he manages that as well.

'What're you _doing_?' Mark gasps, yelling after him but not actually moving to follow, thank Zoar. Ace glances at him. His face looks oddly like a non-mortal Knight's might, when they're a few percent away from starting to flicker.

'Stay back, kid! I'm not…'

He never gets to finish, because by now he's already too far into the shaking, static filled mess of the junkyard and just _moving_ is getting hard enough. Never mind yelling Random's name.

It's far more painful than he'd imagined it would be. And tougher than he imagined it would be. Not that Random hasn't always been fully effective at pushing him away with every ounce of power he has in him. All to protect them, Ace thinks, angrily, from what he thought he was and what he would become.

Which, of course, he'd turned out to be totally right about, after all.

But that didn't make Ace's decision to stand by him any less valid. And it explains why he's here, dragging himself through a shield that could rip him to pieces any second. Hot and white and striking him like cold water from the Jupiter Fountains in Magery Square.

He tries again, reaching through the shaking, crackling mess that remains of the junkyard, seeking out Random amongst the fireworks. It's like trying to penetrate a shield of Harpix-feathers or walking through the tar pits of Dankdrew Marsh.

'Random, stop this!'

He's surprised, this time, that he _hears_ what he's saying. A few seconds ago the air was too thick for breathing –if he'd actually needed to– but now…

He feels closer to Random than before, and the next thing he knows he's ripped clean through the shield and on his knees in the dirt, two feet behind the cyborg. Sparx, Chuck, Mark… he can't see any of them anymore. They vanished behind the almost translucent sheen of the energy building up around them both. It's… burning light everywhere, yet for some reason it feels as dark as a Philosopher's Cavern.

'Rand…'

Ace reaches out a hand to the cyborg, then thinks better of it, given what happened when he touched the junkyard wreckage alone…

'Random.'

'Ace…'

Ace staggers, but doesn't retreat. It's not like he's never seen Random at his worst. He remembers the old days when the slightest glimmer of red sent Sparx into a freak-out and him into a state of… well, he called it "professional anxiety", until Random got a hold of it again and the green came back (usually) and he'd laugh a little, telling them not to get so worried. _'It's never going to get through, Ace. Not if I don't want it too. I'd never hurt either of you.' _

He would, however, hurt his other commanding officer of the time. Badly enough to take him off active duty for a month. Badly enough for Random to see a newly obtained ranking position being taken away from him. It was about then, Ace realised they'd all made some big mistakes when it came to dealing with Random's problem.

It's different, now, though. Random turns without actually moving his… wheel and stares at Ace firmly through burning red eyes. 'Ace…' There's a moment of hope as Ace comes to terms with the fact that he's now standing within a shield of Random's creation, which is… kind of whacked, as Chuck would say, but at least the Junkyard isn't trying to kill him anymore.

'Random, it's okay. That doesn't matter. This… this shield, the one you've thrown up over… over everything. You have to remove it now, before it's too late.'

'Straight to business, huh Ace?' Random almost smiles. Then his face glazes with anger. 'Just… get away you pathetic little lightning knight. Leave me.'

'Uh… okay. If that's an attempt at scaring me off with the evil, Random, it's not working,' Ace snaps. 'I _know_ it's you there, red or green, or else you would've wiped me out while I was going through that shield!' Unless of course, Ace thinks, you're no longer in _control_ of that shield. Unless you never had ANY control over it… Both of which are thoughts he'd really doesn't want to entertain yet. 'Please, Random, lower the shield. You're hurting people!'

'It's not my problem if people can't handle the pressure,' Random says, calmly. Red glaring in the pits of his eyes.

'This isn't just about _mortals_. The world out there is going crazy! I don't know what your evil's telling you right now but it's about time you stopped listening to it, damn it, Random!'

Okay, so that wasn't exactly what he needed to talk about. But… he needed to say it, somewhat. Needed to… let of steam.

'You don't _get it_, do you Ace?' Random say. 'It doesn't matter which of me is talking, we both know the truth.'

Ace doesn't say anything. Interestingly enough if he looks up overhead, he can see straight through to a clear, starless sky and that all of a sudden becomes more interesting than looking straight at Random. Somewhere beyond the shield, the air glows hot and white and the echo of an explosion runs throughout the junkyard. Ace secretly hopes that Sparx has gotten the kids away.

Wait. Chuck said that this was all coming from the carnival… right?

'Rand…?'

'I… I think it's all _over_, Ace. This is how it's going to end. For everything.'

'That's nonsense, Random, you don't know that's true.'

'And you know that it is? I brought this down, Ace, and I don't know how to get rid of it.'

'I… don't understand.. .what is "it"? You need to explain to me what's going on…' Ace pauses mid sentence. '…You don't think has anything to do with Kilobyte, do you?' It's more a statement, than a question.

'Maybe. A little… there'snot much that I'm aware of though,' Random is almost smiling as his claw flexes back on itself.

'What happened?' Ace asks, though he isn't all that sure he's prepared for the answer.

'I tried to change the rules.'

… 'You're wrong,' Ace shakes his head. 'Random, we have a signature for this.. .this thing, it's not coming from here, it's coming from the carnival, that's the only pocket in all of this resistance! I don't know what you think you've done, but—'

Ace never gets the chance to finish his sentence.

The ground is already being ripped from underneath them both in a blaze of white light before he has the chance.

* * *

**Anyone got any idea what's going on? I should hope not ;P. Well, not too much, anyway, as of yet. (and as you can see I did a bit of time jumping.)**

**Reviews (and in particular, ones containing concrit, are appreciated.)**


	4. Chapter 4

**Standard disclaimers apply. The divider button doesn't appear to be working on my document editing page, so I have divided up the chapter as best I could. I hope this isn't a bother. **

x x x

Four. 

'_Uh. I know your guess is as good as mine here, but do you _really_ think this is the way we should be going?'_

'_Don't ask me, man, _she's_ the one leading.' _

-x-

It's never been this hard to get to the carnival before.

But then again, Sparx has never had to _walk_ it. A full two Kryillian Miles. In an energy storm which made Cape Doom look like a good spot for a family picnic. The volatile power being flung all over the place would make steering something like the Lightning Flash damn near impossible, even for a pilot like her. She probably won't be able to keep the damn thing airborne. The only other option is to walk it.

Right through the earthquake, into the carnival, and safety. A… what was it that Chuck said once? A cakewalk? Yeah, that's it.

Whatever. Sparx isn't actually deluded enough to believe that and now that she thinks about it, it's kind of embarrassing how unused she is to _walking_. At the moment, it's hard enough to _move_, never mind get an anti-gravity craft in the air.

There's another problem, too (besides the fact that it's hard to keep her footing, and the energy waves keep sweeping within touching distance overhead and the storm keeps throwing stuff at them.) Everything looks so… _different_ from down here. Sparx is normally so used to having a Knight's-Eye-View. Routes that were easy enough to follow from the air looked more like mazes down here. Like the Garden of Illusion all over again, only more… rocky. How the Garden might've looked if Random had designed it.

…Not that this is the time for thinking creatively. Sparx _hates_ thinking creatively, anyway. It's not her style. Life-or-death battles are her style. Fighting against Kilobyte and Lord Fear and that disgusting little rat is her style. Fencing, kick boxing, turning loops are all her style. Sightseeing through a quake-wreaked Conestoga Hills? Nuh-uh.

'Uh, you're gonna have to help me out here, boys. Which way are we supposed to be going?'

Stupid Kilobyte. Stupid carnival. Stupid Ace and his stupid Zoar-damned ideas. _"Get out there and get to the carnival, Sparx, you'll have to go without me!" _Easy enough for _him_ to say. Obviously he had momentarily forgotten that the whole of Conestoga Hills is shaking and shooting off energy like a Lightning Mole with a bad case of Hypofleas.

Sparx remembers seeing a whole Collective of Lightning Moles once back at the Academy. They invaded the grounds after an evil resettlement forced them out of the Nevershine Mines, and started shorting out power sources and generally wreaking havoc. You couldn't even take a jog around the track route without tripping over one of the Zoar-damned pests and getting static shocked. Random had had some dumb idea about scaring them off by releasing a home-bred swarm of Hypofleas –harmless to Lightning Knights and mortals, but a total pain for the fur covered, static charged Lightning Moles– on the Academy grounds.

Good idea, in theory. Or at least it had been until the Moles had caught on and started trying to _shock_ the little pests off, which had ended up with them letting off even _more_ energy and causing even more havoc than they had been before.

That was just what it was like, and that's just what she feels like now. Like a Hypoflea, stuck on some huge Lightning Mole's back, hoping the shocks don't catch her.

…And why the living _Oblivion_ is she wasting time reminiscing when she's _this_ close to being ripped up by a stray energy trail? Damn it. All this fluxing power must be playing with her programming.

'Sparx, uh, I hate to state the obvious, but we probably shouldn't be here,' Chuck reaches out and grips her arm. 'I mean we're right besides a _building_, if the thing falls we're gonna be squished like a bunch of pancakes. All the survival guides say that you should stay as far away from buildings as possible, man!'

'Great. Useful advice, Chuck, thanks,' Sparx mutters, sarcastically, brandishing her hand at the street, filled with broken glass from smashed in windows and upturned trash cans and heaving concrete. 'So whereabouts here _aren't_ there buildings?'

'I. I'll get back to you, there,' Chuck fights for his footing on the shifting floor. 'And what the hell is happening to the roads?'

'What, you mean sidewalks _don't_ do that around here when there's big trouble?' Sparx frowns, looking at the stone, undulating somewhat beneath Chuck's feet.

'Oh, ha ha. Very funny, Sparx, but this is so not the time!'

Sparx bites her tongue before eventually decided maybe to just let Chuck keep thinking she was joking. Humans are weird like that.

'Well. If anyone's got a plan for when we get in there, this'd be a good time to let it rip,' her voice was met with silence. Well, silence except for the wild grumbling of the quakes and the screaming of the energy beams. '…Anyone?'

'I think you mean… if we get in there,' Mark answers, eventually. Weird, though. He sounds funny. He looks funny, in fact. He's got his back to the wall; the way they all have trying to keep from falling over but… his face is a weird colour. Or it has a total _lack_ of colour, might be a better way of putting it.

'Uh. Mark I have to be a buzz kill here, but…' she points at Mark's shoulder, which was pretty much covered in whatever that red stuff was that he'd started losing after he got his by that flying metal back in the junkyard. '…Ew?'

'Yeah,' Mark's voice is shaking when he talks. 'Yeah, my thoughts exactly.'

'Oh, crap,' apparently it's the first time Chuck has noticed the state Mark's in since the junkyard and now he's staring at Mark in abject horror. Whatever that stuff is, the loss of it is clearly just as effective as the loss of binary code. 'Dude that is so not gonna be good for you…'

'No kidding, I mean. Chuck, you mind telling me how much of you mortals' bodies' is composed of liquid?' Sparx bit her tongue. First she's reminiscing about Academy days, now she's talking _science_? _Her_? She scowls, clinging to the wall and wondering what in White Hot Oblivion is wrong with her.

'Enough,' Chuck's face looked a little like Mark's did now. Perhaps a little greener, though. 'Mark what… you must've severed an artery or something. Wed better find some way to cut that off or you're gonna lose your arm or—.'

Whatever else could happen, Sparx doesn't get to hear about it, because all of a sudden she's yelling "down!¬" and they're ducking beneath a particularly low flying wave of violet energy, creeping like coloured water over their heads, breaking down a lamppost in a cascade of sparks. Sparx grabs hold of the first thing there –which just happens to be Chuck, clinging on until the tremor subsides. Which takes a while. In fact, she's pretty certain just the shock of the thing alone knocked her power down two percent.

'Whoa…' Mark murmurs, and Sparx doesn't disagree.

'Zoar damn it,' she says. 'Look, are we going to get to the carnival before we all get shish-kebabbed or what?'

'Sparx, trust me, more walking is not a good idea,' Chuck wasn't having to yell any longer, now that they were a little further away from the junkyard, but his voice was still pitched kind of above normal for some reason. 'I mean, guy losing blood here? A lot of it? It-it's not as easy to replace as the stuff in your power gauge. The more he moves the more he's going to lose.'

'Look, kid, you've got Chuckdude there worried about this,' Sparx said quickly, and me, she thinks without saying aloud. 'What the heck happened to you?'

Chuck's frowning. In fact, he looks almost as terrified as he did the first time Sparx ever saw him, back in the Sixth Dimension, when faced with a troupe of Killer Show Monkeys. Only this time it's somehow… worse. This time she can't just blast away the problem.

'N-nothing,' she can see Mark swallowing the pain, directing his eyes away from his shirt where the red is seeping through. 'It's nothing, not right now.'

'_This_ is your definition of nothing? Dude, you've been playing this game way too long!' Chuck looks back at Sparx, seeming more decisive than Sparx has ever seen him in his life, 'he can't go.'

Sparx feels her frown widen. She clings to the bricks behind her with both hands. 'You don't honestly expect me to go in there alone, right?' She frowned… okay, so she was hardy able to believe what she was saying here. It looked as if her program was the only thing making any sense right now. Hell, she wants nothing better right now that to

'I don't think you have a choice, man,' Chuck shakes his head.

'I never said it was up to you, Chuck!' Mark snaps, which seems to surprise Chuck more than anything, because he flinches a little.

'Mark…'

'Sorry, I-I didn't mean…'

Great. Just great. The world's blowing up all around them, and the boy's are having a spat. They do not have time for this. They do _not_—

Sparx's trail of thought is interrupted.

A single, gleaming rod of energy.

It starts suddenly, and forms way too fast, cutting through the air like a knife and hurtling upwards for… for just about forever. It reminds her of a Sword of Jacob, piercing the sky, only about a thousand times bigger and a million times more dangerous. Same colour, too. That isn't what worries her, though. What worries her is where it's _coming from_. And everyone else is also staring in horror as they realise it, too.

The junkyard.

Exactly where the Junkyard was.

_Ace_.

Sparx hears herself swearing. Feels herself starting to turn back in that direction, running against the shaking roads. But then there's a hand on her arm pulling her back. 'Let. Go!' she cries out before she can stop herself and the hand hangs on, even though Sparx can already tell it's a weak one. She could rip it away easy as anything. Somebody is yelling Ace's name, and another is yelling hers.

Then she realises whose hand it is. 'Sparx, don't, man, you can't go back there!'

'No, it's Ace! Chuckdude, he's back there we can't, I—'

'Sparx!' Chuck is swallowing now and really not looking like himself. This is so… bizarre, that he's the one in control now and Mark's obviously barely holding it together and she…

…She just wants to track something so bad. If Ace is back there. If he's been…

'Uh… okay. Okay, that's _definitely_ the junkyard, isn't it?' Chuck's already weird coloured face is turning an even darker shade of green.

'Yes, Chuck,' Mark should be yelling, only his voice is dragged out and slow sounding. 'Yes that's definitely the junkyard.'

Mark wasn't the only thing who looked messed up. Everything that wasn't being smashed up was warped out of shape. Like…

…Like something being sucked into a portal.

Sparx felt her mouth dry out. Oh. Crap. She can't move, and yet she feels something shuddering, way, deep down in her program. Something telling her that she knows what this thing is, that she's seen it before. And it that memory too, there's someone clutching her arm, holding her back from running into something that looks like a hellfire. The only difference is that in the memory she was struggling, and she's not struggling now, because her Knight hand-to-hand combat training isn't designed for people she doesn't want to _hurt_, so she just lets Chuck hang on and…

And she knows this has happened before. She doesn't know how she knows, but she _does_.

Intuition, maybe? That thing Ace had told her about?

But that can't be right, can it?

Hell, you'd think she'd _remember_ something like this happening second for second, but it's nothing more than a faint sense of… of deja….whatever way down inside of her deepest hidden program. Something she'd never dreg up fully if she thought about it for a lifetime.

'Random was right,' she breathes, even though she's not all that sure exactly _what _Random was right about or what, if anything, Random even has to do with all of this at all, she just knows that he was.

And that doesn't make any sense either.

'Sparx,' Mark whispers, and she whirls to face him again, even though a part of her doesn't really want to. She's never seen this happen to a mortal before and, to put it briefly, it's freaking her out.

'I um, I think I'm going to go with Chuck on this one. I'm kind of… I'm having trouble feeling my arm. Add this to the fact that that's my _shooting_ arm and… I'm no good to you out there. Chuck,' Mark looked in Chuck's direction. 'You can go with me or Sparx—' Chuck's opening his mouth now and Sparx just knows he's going to argue. 'and Sparx needs you to give her directions to the carnival. Look, we're not that far from the surgery. There's no point you hanging around if they need you. Wrist cannon, in there.' He pushed the bag over his shoulder in Chuck's direction, wincing as it brushed against the energy bleed, or whatever it was. Chuck's hands are shaking as he finds the cannon buried in the rucksack.

Sparx knows that she's seen Chuck freaked out of his mortal mind so many times, but she's never seen his _hands shake_ before.

'I… what about you?' Chuck asked.

'Like I said. Surgery. Believe it or not, we're not the only people left in Conestoga,' Mark says. And… damn he really means this. There really must be something wrong if he's insisting they go on without him this way.

'Uh, right, and while you're doing whatever the heck you're supposed to do now,' Sparx has to point out. 'What exactly are _we_ meant to do?'

'Just… go with the plan, okay?' Mark says. As if that's supposed to mean something to her.

'Plan?' Sparx has to grimace 'Tell me when we ever actually _had_ a plan, Mark! This whole level is falling apart and we're going even deeper into this –just the two of us, because you're in no state to go anywhere and Ace is…' she swallows. 'And we're walking _right_ into the heart of it. That's _not_ a plan, it's a… a… Okay, I don't know _what_ it is, but it's not a plan.'

Mark makes a thin smile in her direction, which disturbs Sparx slightly; maybe because it reminds her of the way Ace smiles at her when they're in a no-win situation with no escape.

But then, they've been in a lot of no-win situations with no way out. Ace always found one before. 'So it should be right up your street, then, huh?' Mark says.

Sparx can't actually _help_ but smile back a little. Even through the pain in her stomach at the thought of something bad happening to Ace and against the thought of going into this all alone, she has to smile at the thought that he still thinks they can do this.

Yeah. Now that she thinks about it, he's right. This _is_ her kind of place. Her kind of chaos. She's handled worse before, and if her memory banks are anything to go by, then she _must_ have survived something like this once before, right?

Maybe just through total blind luck. But there's no such thing as a one-off lucky event in Sparx's files. _'Why not again?'_

Chuck is forcing the Wrist Cannon onto his arm with hands that're still shaking as he stares uneasily in the direction of the lancing beam of purple light. But then he looks at Sparx and somehow –Zoar knows exactly how– he manages to smile. And says something like 'we'd better get extra bonuses for this, man,' which Sparx doesn't get, but it doesn't matter anyway. At least he's smiling. At least he's not just running away like he did back in Googler's Big Top.

Behind them against the wall, Mark hasn't moved.

Next stop the Carnival. Right.

Sparx couldn't help grinning slightly as she turned back to face the storm. Her kind of chaos.


	5. Chapter 5

**Another ad lib chapter done quickly. I just want to get the damn thing moving already. Standard disclaimers apply. **

* * *

He had known worse calamities than this, though he doubted anyone would believe it if he said so. No matter, really.

Still, he _knew_ that he had. Had no idea when or where or how but at some point or another he had been in a place just like this, all wrapped in fire and distortion, with the walls bleeding into each other and breaking into pieces in small, confined explosions, as if nothing left was solid anymore and everything could just blow up in your face at any given second. It was all very confusing, really.

The carnival, mercifully, seemed to have been spared a lot of the onslaught –another thing he wouldn't know how to explain when his Lord demanded it of him. Then again it was all probably the result of some incredible powers his Lord had conjured up himself to protect the carnival from such mortal terrors.

'_Then again, I don't honestly think mortals are clever enough, to come up with something like this.'_

And what _was_ this, anyway? Asides from a mess the size of the whole ruddy sixth dimension, that was. Nothing mortal. Nothing Knight, either. The last time he checked, knights didn't have the ability to make the whole world change shape around you.

The minions, of course, were not dealing with it all very well.

Not so far in front of him hovering just beyond the carnival gates, a stream of purple light ripped apart a trashcan, which then vanished is if it had never been there. As soon as it hit the gates, however, the purple flames had died again. _Very_ peculiar indeed. As if the carnival itself were in some way protected from whatever lay beyond.

'What the freakin'… hey, hey Staffy! Staffy what the heck is goin' on here?'

Ah. Right on cue. 'Now if I had the answer to that, my dear vermin…' Staffhead said, curling himself calmly around one of the banisters of the haunted House. '…would I be standing around and watching it happen rather than working with our lord to find some means of stopping it, before it turns the carnival to… whatever it seems to be turning the rest of the world to.'

'Yeah well I wouldn't put it past ya, stick. You know something.'

'There are a lot of things you wouldn't put past me, rat. I'm sure our lord knows what he is doing.'

Of course the rat was far from happy with that answer, but it meant nothing to Staffhead.

'Listen, stick, I don't _care_ what the boss thinks. It's pretty damn obvious even he ain't got the moxy to conjure up or conjure away all this crazy stuff, and as for you? Puh-leeze.'

'Oh , you do wound me, my dear ratty.'

'Good. Maybe you'll wipe out if I do it enough, huh?'

'What was that, Ratty?'

'Nothing, staff…. Just praising the greatness of our lord some more fer protecting us from this great unholy terror or whatever-it-is-ness, you know how it is.'

'Hm. Yes. Listen, as far as we can tell something is keeping the shockwaves of this… whatever it is well away from the carnival,' Staffhead said, calmly. 'Now if that isn't our good Lord's doing then I have no idea whose it might be. And while we're on the subject,' he turned to the caravan the mortal in their service usually called home.

If the mortal looked puffed up and anxious under usual circumstances, today he was outdoing his own reputation. Pathetic mortals tended to respond even less aptly to change than the lower class minions did. 'We are certain that this chaos has in no way penetrated the carnival, aren't we?'

'W-well uh… There's the fun house. T_hat's_ not protected. The whole _floors_ gone.'

'What exactly do you mean.. .the floor is gone?'

'I mean what I says I means. Seriously, no walls just the whole freaking floors gone. It's all goopy and freaky under there! I mean if we can't get it fixed by the holiday season next month the customers will be walkin' around on the pipes!'

_(Earth and base, ripped asunder,)_ the words hit Staffhead like one of Lightning's electrical pulses. He couldn't say where they came from. He knew only that they meant something. _(Earth and base, ripped asunder…)_

'… _Please_ try and sort out your priorities, mortal. If I were you –and thank the seven hells I'm not– I'd consider yourself lucky if you have _any _customers when this is all over.'

'So you _do_ know what's happening, then?' The rat's tone was an odd mix of panic and sleaze that Staffhead found oddly entertaining.

'Well…' Staffhead looked back at the sky. It was grey now, deep and dark as if filled with clouds where none could be. Somewhere in the distance strands of violet were creeping upwards into the sky. 'If you all might recall… the uprising in Canary Warp, not long before our glorious upheaval of Sixth Dimensional society.

'I knew it. Quit skippin' around the point and spill already, stick. What's happening around here to make the world go crazy?'

'I might have an idea,' Staffhead muttered, between his teeth. Only for the first time in all his years in serve to his master, he didn't feel quite as sure of himself as he could have been.

* * *

_When metal heated up, it had a tendency to warp and buckle under the slightest pressure. They used to warn him all about that back in the early days of his… replacement therapy. No more missions to molten caverns or Boiling Avenue. No more trips to White Hot Oblivion (not that he had been especially bothered about that particular rule.)_

_None of those places were a fraction as hot as this. None of them were a fraction as angry. None of them had held the incredible potential of electricity that could turn the very air to ash and dust. _

_Back in his power-application classes at the academy, Electricity had been advertised by his tutors as the most powerful artificial force on earth. Even stronger than the elements of nuclear, heat, air and shadow all combined. Random was never sure whether or not he believed that assumption. _

_But he believed it now. _

'_This is what power looks like. Real power. The kind of power none can possess. Except perhaps for you.' _

_He had no idea what was happening, only that whatever it was, he was trapped in the middle of it. The sky existed only as a hot white light. The earth was molten stone and metal as the junkyard fell about all around him. Ace. Ace was out there, somewhere… lost in the burning heat. But he couldn't actually see the junkyard anymore, so, how could he be certain… how did he know where the power came from? _

Is it from me? Can I… do all this? Create all this chaos? How?

'_Who knows how? But…if you can, then you can use it. Wipe the Lightning Knights away. Wipe away all weakness. Then everything_

…No. You can't survive this. Neither can I. We're not strong enough.

'_I am strong, stronger than anything. It's the rest of the world that is to weak to handle it.' _

_Random couldn't come up with an answer to that. It was…strange, how much sense his evil side tended to make. _It's always been like this…just me and the evil inside me.

…Wait. No. No, not _always_. It can't have been…

…Ace?

Ace… What am I supposed to do about this?

You know I don't like asking for help, my friend…

…_Help is just for cowards, after all. _


End file.
